Tag Archives: Herzog & de Meuron

Presenting the new design for the Park Avenue armory, by the Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. The $200-million restoration is expected to be completed by 2015, says The New York Times. Image below: one of the two rooms that have been completed. It includes a chandelier designed by Herzog & de Meuron.

Presenting the video (directed and animated by Tronic Studio) for 56 Leonard, the 56-story stacked skyscraper, a vertical landmark expression of sculpted surfaces, cantilevers and sparkling glasss. Housing 145 spatially innovative residences and 10 unique penthouses, reportedly priced between $3.5 million and $33 million, 56 Leonard, located in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood, is designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. Slated to open this year, the luxury high-rise, with its panoramic views of the cityscape, features a specially commissioned street level sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor (his first permanent public work in New York). The 9th and 10th floors are home to the Leonard Collection, a private amenity space for residents, custom designed by Herzog & de Meuron, which will include a library lounge, fitness center, an indoor/outdoor theater, a landscaped outdoor sundeck and hot tub, a 75-foot infinity-edge lap pool, among other Excellently Outstanding agreeableness.

Admiring the concrete and glass structure of the Excellently Outstanding (literally and figuratively) 1111 Lincoln Road, the new shopping, dinning, residential, and parking experience (with luxury retail shops on the ground and fifth levels and a 5200-square-foot penthouse with a sloping terrace) in Miami Beach, a collaboration between artists, designers, and landscape architects, envisioned and developed by Robert Wennett and designed by Priztker award-winning Herzog & de Meuron Architects. 1111 Lincoln Road is, as described by Jacques Herzog, a unique example of Tropical Modernism that is “all muscle without cloth.” Much like the residents of and visitors to Miami Beach themselves …

“For the vision of the stage design, which we developed with Miuccia Prada (Pierre de Meuron and myself), we decided very early on to be, actually, quite close to Verdi’s description of … Verdi’s vision, which is basically based on two images. On one hand is the rubble, is the destruction, is the destroyed world, that we took very literally, even more literally than Verdi probably did. And there is nature. Nature represented by wild nature. Very strong, powerful nature. So one doesn’t go without the other. And it is a forest that you know from images rather than from your won experience because it should be much more real, almost hyper realistic. Like the forest in fairy tales. In Hansel and Gretel, for instance. was a forest which is both real, scary, symbolic, mystical. We also used the light for the forest, and for the rubble, not as light which is inspired by our individual taste whatsoever, but it should be the light we know from our own memory, like the light that you know from hospitals, from explosions, or the light, the green light military lights. And those lights are being used to enhance this moment of danger, of this kind of steamy, gloomy, jungle type of forest where the light always has this specific character. It’s always very artificial light. So the forest doesn’t have this romantic moment that you find sometimes in art, in paintings, where the light, or the wood, is used as wild energy or, at the same time, as something that promises hope.” —Jacques Herzog of Herzog & de Meuron Architects

The Excellent lighting of Attila: Ildar Abdrazakov, top, in the title role, and, from left: Violeta Urmana as Odabella, Ramón Vargas as Foresto, Russell Thomas as Uldino and Samuel Ramey as Leone, at the Metropolitan Opera. Image by Sara Krulwich for The New York Times via nytimes.com.

4. Cinema: Tie: His Excellency Colin Firth for his Outstandingly Excellent performance in A Single Man; Mo’ Nique for her heartbreakingly Excellent performance in Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.

22. Style: Lady Gaga for her dubious and gaggingly overrated and hysterical influence on fashion and music.

23. Technology: The Excellent Nick Knight for his ShowStudio.com, Excellently forcing the fashion world to acknowledge the 21st Century.

24. The Look: Tights under shorts for men. Excellency for your consideration.

25. Theater: Cate Blanchett for her Outstandingly Excellent performance as Blanche DuBois in The Sydney Theater Company’s production of Tennessee Williams‘s A Streetcar Named Desire, presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

26. Thought: What is Excellence?

27. Travel: The City of Angles for its upcoming status as the capital of the art world.

28. Visuals: The Excellent staffs and artists of Peres Projects, Los Angeles and Berlin, for their Outstandingly Excellent program and exhibitions.